Eiri-san's Bride
by Joriel
Summary: Ayaka tried to face her marriage to Yuki with courage and dignity.


How strange that there is only a waiting stillness in my heart, I am living out every adolescent girl's dream who lives in Japan. And probably many of the older women too. Tomorrow I marry "Yuki Eiri", the famous romance novelist. Women have been falling at his feet for years now. It was my teenage dream too. So I keep telling myself I should be happy, I should be excited, I should at least be content. I am fulfilling my family's wishes for me.  
  
Eugora Ayaka. Eiri-san's real last name will be mine tomorrow. I drop the curtain back into place over the window, resenting the bright sunshine falling across my family's home. Why can't it rain? Why can't it storm and pour and let me pretend that it's me causing it, pouring out my feelings into the weather.  
  
Marry Eiri-san.  
  
The laughter bubbles out of my throat, sad and maybe a little bitter. I don't know, it's hard to judge the quality of your own laughter, and there is no one here to hear it. But it doesn't sound to me like the laughter that came from me when I spend time with Hiroshi or Shuichi. Maybe bitterness, maybe just resignation. I am a good daughter, and it seems to me that all good daughters feel a great deal of resignation. What would it be like to be American? My country may not be communists, but choices sometimes can be limited for a daughter. If I were American, I would have been more free to choose my own fate. Well, there was a time that I had some control, but better not to think of that now. I made my decisions, and I will live with them, and try to find contentment in that.  
  
The wedding kimono catches my gaze as I return to sit on my bed to think some more. Again, I have an idly American thought, I wish I could bleach out the beautiful colors of the kimono, turning it white, white as bone, white as death, white as the color of mourning. I hear in America that is the traditional bridal color. There I could get away  
  
with it and only I would know the morbidity of the dress I chose to wed Eiri-san in.  
  
It's all Shuichi's fault. When I was sixteen years old, I ran away from home. That sounds so melodramatic, but that is exactly what I had done. Only, to be fair to myself, I wasn't running away from my responsibilities. I wanted to meet the man I was betrothed to, get an idea of what he was like. More than just the image he projected in the books he wrote. I wanted to know what my future would be like.  
  
And what do I do, silly child that I was? I run strait into two unsavory men in the park at night, and damn near get myself raped. What a bride I would be then in the eyes of my family, huh? That is the night I met Shuichi and Hiro, who helped me to find Eiri-san. And to my horror, I first learned of the relationship between the sweet pink-haired pop idol and the cool blond author. It didn't take me long to realize that there really was love there on both sides, while my feelings were mere fantasy. So I lost my first love to Shuichi. It seems to be a pattern in my life.  
  
You see, I also lost my second love, and it was Shuichi's fault too. Well, Eiri-san's fault even more I suppose. It was five years ago, when I was seventeen. After living together a year, Eiri-san finally pushed Shu-chan too far once, hurt his heart just that one time too many. I can still remember the tears in Shu-chan's beautiful violet eyes. My hand can still feel the sting of Eiri-san's cheek when I slapped him with all my strength. He'd stared down at me, so much amazement in his eyes. I was so furious, Shu-chan's only sin ever was to love him. And look how he repaid my poor friend.  
  
And it was just sadness in Shu-chan's eyes, I'd seen that often enough. It was...just that something broke, deep inside him, from the cold words that came from nowhere. He'd run then, and my boyfriend, who happened to be Shuichi's best friend and lead guitarist, ran after him. Hiro was wonderful like that, if you were his friend, he would help you whenever things were bad. He and Shuichi had been friends since high school, and  
  
I knew Hiro's secret, that he had also loved Shuichi. I knew that his feelings for me were genuine and not mere rebound. Still...when I watched Shuichi start sleepwalking through his life, and the pain in Hiro's eyes...  
  
I was only seventeen years old. I loved Hiro, I really did, but I also knew that I was only seventeen. What are the real odds that it would last forever? And I had learned that love is sometimes letting go, as the new popular single from Bad Luck that Shuichi wrote for me explains. Shuichi always manages to find out things. I went to Hiro, and told him I was sorry, but I couldn't love him, he was wonderful, but my feelings just didn't go that way. There was pain in his eyes, but also relief. And I set him free, to go love Shuichi. It hurt, but I guess being young really does mean being resilient.  
  
It was when I turned twenty that I lost my third and deepest love to Shuichi, again. Like I said, a pattern that I couldn't seem to break. Hiro and Shuichi were deeply in love, and joyful to see. It was the kind of love Shuichi had needed, it stabilized him, inspired him, and always brought joy to his eyes. They would fight, but it was always brief and blew over quickly, not like the long cold silences and seemingly endless suffering Shuichi endured for Eiri-san's sake.  
  
How does this have anything to do with me losing another love to Shuichi, people may ask me. And I answer quite simply, I fell in love with Shuichi himself. I never told him, he was never mine. But that didn't stop my stupid heart from being his. It still is even today, and something in it dies a little each time he hugs me, telling me I'm his best friend and he loves me. Shuichi is like that, his feelings are always right there to be seen. Even on stage, you can see his joy in sharing with the audience, his sheer love of music, his pride in his songs. Always, his emotions right on the surface to be gently touched and marveled at. And never, ever to be shattered like fragile glass to be left scattered across the snow again.  
  
And now, I'm marrying his first love. His "Yuki". I cannot even begin to describe how it all makes me feel. Sad, wistful, angry, regretful, horrible. I thought marriage was about joy? Another teenage fantasy. Yuki is in love with Shuichi. He always was. I don't know what happened to him in America, Tetsuya-san says that he was not like this before Seguchi-san took him there. That he came back destroyed in mind and heart. I don't know what made him, but a year of Shuichi's unending and open love should have healed some of it. If he'd wanted to be healed.  
  
Now he just writes, drinks, and smokes. He is indifferent to life itself, worse than he was before Shuichi according to Mika-san. Eiri-san showed no interest in anything regarding the wedding until I mentioned that Shuichi was on my guest list. The mere mention of Shuichi unfroze something in his eyes for a moment, but he has no hope there. Shuichi  
  
and Hiro are a strong couple, and it's real love, not consolation like Eiri hopes. I think that he loves Shuichi as much as I do. I hope that it is true, I hope that he never loves me, or any other. May my ancestors forgive me, so famed for their kindness and forgiveness, but I hope he stays in this hell forever. He earned it.  
  
The breath leaves my lungs in a rush, no. I can't hope for that. Because I love Shuichi.  
  
I swear to you Shuichi, I will try to be all that you were. I will eat my own heart one more time, and try to make Eiri feel wanted, feel human again. I will try to fix him, even though I doubt I ever will. How could I hope to do what you could not? I am not half the force of nature you are. But I want to make your dreams come true. And I know, that somewhere deep inside you, you will always love him. I see the look in your eyes when his name comes up. You won't ever leave Hiro's side, I see how you look at him too, but they say you never forget your first real love. I know I won't. I'll spend my life trying to live up to it.  
  
I love you, Shuichi. For you, I will wear that brightly colored kimono, say all the right words, make all the right gestures tomorrow. I am Ayaka, I am 22 years old, and I can do this thing.  
  
I return to the window, and see you getting out of a car. The sun is bright on your still pink hair, and the smile on your face is so beautiful. Tomorrow I will be Eiri's ice queen. Did you know he told me today in that cold, dispassionate voice it's up to me if we have sex or not. How flattering, he doesn't give a damn. I think I'll say no for a while, sex isn't the road to him. Help me, Shuichi.  
  
Help me get through this, and I'll never ask another thing of you, Shu- chan. Just tonight, let me pretend that you arrived to marry me, and feel a little joy, a little excitement. Tomorrow is soon enough for reality.  
  
Eugora Ayaka. Eiri-san's bride.  
  
I will raise my daughter in freedom, should I be lucky enough to ever have one. She will never face a day like this, that is my contribution to my family name. She will never wish for a bone-white kimono. 


End file.
